BILOXI, Miss. -- Gooey oil mousse patties and tarballs struck Petit Bois and Horn islands on Friday, and emulsified oil slipped into the Mississippi Sound north of Petit Bois, according to state and federal officials.

"We have seen, today, some pretty heavy oiling on Petit Bois, and those reports are still being consolidated," Adrian Freeman, a National Park Service park ranger, said Friday.

Petit Bois was "heavily peppered," but the oil conditions change with the tide, she said.
"We'll certainly have cleaning crews out there. It looks like we're going to have SCAT (Shoreline Cleanup Assessment Teams) teams out early in the morning and crews going out, but total number, I don't know yet."

The southern side of Petit Bois was covered with the oil material, Robbie Wilbur, communications director for the state Department of Environmental of Quality, said in a news release.

The south side of the eastern third of Horn Island was 5 to 10 percent covered by oil material, he stated.

William Walker, executive director of the state Department of Environmental Quality, said he would go today to the oiled area by boat, with a helicopter overhead, "to try to better ascertain what is actually out there."

Walker said sheen cannot be skimmed. "We are really not worried about the sheen. If that is all we get, we‚ll be happy. It is just evaporation, but the degraded oil, depending on how degraded, it can be a problem, so we want to pick up as best as we can and keep it off our islands."

A flight on Thursday showed a clear area of 40 to 60 miles to the heavily oiled Deepwater Horizon well site, he said. Walker said he wants to verify that the area has remained clear of oil.

Submitted Photo/Mississippi Department of Environmental QualityTar balls and mousse patties littered the south side of Petit Bois Island on Friday.

The oiling of Petit Bois and Horn islands is the second wave of oil to reach Mississippi from the Deepwater Horizon well site since it exploded on April 20 and sank two days later in the Gulf of Mexico. Eleven rig crewmembers died on the rig.

About 1,000 tar balls a tenth of a mile south of Horn Island had broken up into a 500-foot area and was being skimmed.

A line of orange mousse and tar patties about 20 feet wide was narrowing to three feet and lined up northwest to southeast, and was a quarter-mile southeast of Petit Bois. The material was being skimmed.

Emulsified oil a "couple" of miles south of Petit Bois Island was breaking up into a sheen.

An emulsified oil streak four feet wide and 20 feet long, 1.4 miles north of Petit Bois was skimmed and removed.

Wilbur's news release said the tarballs and mousse patties on land were being removed with shovels and rakes.

Also Friday, the area closed to fishing in state waters was reduced, but revised to those areas where oil was detected. The closed area is in the eastern Mississippi Sound roughly at the midpoint of Horn Island east to the Alabama line. Areas near the mainland remain open.

Jackson County expanded a Mississippi Department of Marine Resources pilot program that utilizes a shield of hydrophilic, oil-absorbing fabric called X-Tex to protect shores and wetlands to include the eastside of Lake Mars Pier this morning.

"There are acres of wetlands there," said Jackson County spokesman Ken Flanagan. "They're going to string it to the pier today, start on the west side of the pier tomorrow and go to Belle Fontaine Beach either tomorrow, Sunday or Monday."

DMR got the fabric, which will eventually be paid for by BP, from Environmental Protection Systems, a Biloxi-based company co-owned by former Gulfport Mayor Brent Warr.

"One mile went to Ocean Springs, we got one mile and Pascagoula will be getting the other," Flanagan said. "We‚re going to monitor it, and if it tests well, DMR is going to use it across more of the coast."

At last week's installation in Ocean Springs, Tim McGrath of UltraTech International Inc., the fabric manufacturer, said each 3-foot-tall, 250-foot-long roll of fabric could absorb 375 gallons of oil.

"What makes it unique, compared to other things used against oil, is the fact that it allows water to pass through it but oil sticks to the actual fibers of this fabric," McGrath said. "It's durable and can be reused, as well. They could actually siphon or squeeze the oil out of it and reuse the fabric."